Unemployment in the first quarter of 2021 jumped to around 758,000, the highest since the pandemic started, according to state economists.
Danucha Pichayanan, secretary-general of the National Economic and Social Development Council, on Monday unveiled the alarming surge between January and March, which ended with jobless rate at 1.96%, just shy of its last high of 2.08% in 2009 in the wake of the global financial meltdown. It was up from the 1.86% unemployment level at the close of 2020.
Productivity also fell 1.8% from the same period last year to an average of 40.1 hours per week, according to Danucha.
One of the hardest-hit sectors is tourism, which comprised about one-fifth of the economy before the pandemic started. The borders have been closed to most travel since March 2020. According to the Thai Hotels Association, one million hotel workers were laid off in…
